Jones had his own business in his native town of New Ross, Ireland, but left it in the hands of a manager in order to go on his mission to China.

[1] He attended Lancashire Independent College, a dissenting academy from 1874 to 1876 and arrived in Yantai, Shandong in 1876.

[2] In the following year, he went to Qingzhou to assist Timothy Richard by keeping the accounts for an ongoing relief effort for the victims of the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879.

[1] He continued to reside in Qingzhou with the exception of the period from 1889 to 1896, during which he lived in Zouping.

He died when a temple building on Taishan, Tai'an in which he was sleeping collapsed during a storm.